


Fascination

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:25:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: In which Rumpelstiltskin is the Prince of a neighboring kingdom and Belle is an awkward fifteen year old girl and his dearest friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fascination

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a Prompt from 3pirouette on tumblr and an anon image prompt.

—

**Fascination**

—

It was that not-so-awkward stage of fifteen that Belle found herself noticing that all the other princess and duchesses her age were already getting married. Or engaged. She told herself that she had been a very cute child, but somewhere along the lines of nine and ten something went horribly wrong.

It could have been her handmaiden’s bright idea to chop her hair short. It was all the rage in Arcadia. But if her mahogany curls had been uncontrollable then, they were even more vicious afterwards. They formed a little brown halo around her head and bounced in time with her step.

It could have been the sun-stained freckles that appeared on her nose after one summer of touring the nine kingdoms. Most of the damage had been done in Dorstonis, with its’ desert heat and the gigantic ships that floated on the harbor.

It could have been the way she grew, legs and arms first while her midsection remained stick-straight and unformed, while all the other girls had these wonderful things called breasts. And waists. Tiny waists.

Belle would never have a waist that a man could put his hands around— indeed, she shuddered to think of the man that could, but still. She looked forward to the day that she would actually be able to see a difference from her waist and her hips.

She wasn’t wild, like some of her northern cousins. She had Merida’s curls, but not her distinct dislike of anything female. Belle didn’t mind the dresses or the frilly fabrics. As long as she was left alone in her library, she was happy. She was even allowed into her father’s war council rooms.

But minding the dresses or the frilly fabrics didn’t mean that more often then not she would peel off her pantaloons and her stockings and her stiff shoes and wad around the castle barefoot.

She was a very calm fifteen-year-old, when she got pretty again. It wasn’t that she had been an ugly adolescent. But the soft beginning swell of breasts and the hint of hips never hurt her cause. Her hair grew out again. Her chin was well-defined and her cheekbones more pronounced. And suddenly it was like people didn’t remember when she had an ‘unfortunate’ figure. Like it had never happened.

Still, Belle had reached that magical age of fifteen, when the world seemed so small and so big at the same time. She most often found herself at parties, prodded by her worrying father— whom, of course, wanted nothing but for his only child to be successful and sociable.

With her stiff pantaloons and petticoats and enough starch to clean an army of white tablecloths. A tight bodice to accentuate her rather proud pathetic growing bosom that seemed to have grown in overnight. Still, she managed not to trip this time, and that in itself she considered a personal achievement.

However, Belle knew that it was probably best not to push her luck. It was her father’s palace, anyway. She was entitled to wander around away from the loud noise and the quick tempo music that would most literally have her trampling on someone’s toes. The wine had gotten to their heads, and a few of the couples held each other only like lovers did.

So she wandered out in the gardens, with the little lantern lights and the summer tea parties and the fountains, and no one accompanied her. She was blissfully, blissfully, alone.

Except, of course, for the only person she ever welcomed when she wanted to be alone; to get away from crowded parties and stiff skirts.

His father was a King in the kingdom adjunct to theirs. However— his aging father had yet to name him— the only heir— the rightful heir to Arcadia. He’d been ‘Baron’ since they were children. But it was still a title that the other heirs and princesses used against him.

He was lean and tall and lanky, with thick dark hair. Belle had always loved his hair. But he looked like he had too much leg and he wobbled with feet that were far too big. His hands were ginormous.

Rumpelstiltskin had his trousers rolled up to the knee and was sitting perched on the edge of her father’s largest fountain, up to the calf in icy magic water. Belle noiselessly pulled her glass shoes from her feet and followed afterwards with her stockings— all the while her perfect pressed dress and petticoats hiked up to her thighs— she’d had to have her Nan see her like this. Or her father. Or her— Gaston. Or Gaston. But Rumpelstiltskin was different.

“You are about as quiet as a snoring lion,” Rumpelstiltskin called without turning his head. “I heard you clunking down the pathway ten minutes ago.”

Her glass slippers flew past his head and into the fountain with a splash, splashing him right in the face. He dripped silently, tongue-in-cheek, while Belle sat down next to him, slipping her feet in right next to his.

“They called you Baron again?” Belle asked, nudging Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulder with her forehead, fond of him always.

Somewhere above her she could feel him nod, and swallow. She could hear the liquid catch in his throat and feel his prominent Adams apple bob. Belle knew the way that he clenched his big, gangly hands every time one of the other princes hissed Baron at him.

Rumpelstiltskin was by no means handsome. He had no lovers. He was two and twenty to her five and ten, but his voice did not have that manly gruff to it yet.

He shifted, looked at her knowingly— complete with her stiff petticoats and her skirts rolled up to her thighs and her feet stuck in murky water. “Hey, look at you, pet!” He smiled, touched her chin with his hand. “Aren’t you a right ball of pretty princess.”

Belle shoved him away without mercy, and hid the smile that broke on her lips. “Oh,bollocks, you.”

“Well, that was unladylike.”

Belle shoved him again.

His gangly body easily took the force of her princess-shove. He was easily a foot taller than her— and to an adult, that may have not seemed like much, but two a fifteen year old who was both too small and too big for her own skin, it seemed like miles. His cravat was crooked and his collar flopped out the wrong direction, but her Rumpelstiltskin was familiar as ever.

And his eyes had never followed her that the way that the other boys were starting too. He’d watched her long before that. “My father hears that your father is picking out a bridegroom for his precious princess,” Rumpelstiltskin drawled— drawing her out, she knew. She had once teased him about his one-time-fiancé, Gothel. She’d gotten mud tossed in her hair as reward.

Belle turned her head towards him so quick her neck cricked, “Who?”

Rumpelstiltskin shrugged, infuriating bastard. “Adam. Or Eric. I don’t remember which,” he said with the distinct sound of someone who did know something but just wasn’t willing to spill.

She played his games. He was the only one who played proper games at these parties. So she stuck her tongue out. “Adam. Last I heard he was too busy throwing tantrums in his mighty palace.”

Rumpelstiltskin hummed appreciatively. “Eric isn’t so bad. Though he’s always out at sea.”

“Oh, aye,” Belle sighed, finger to her lips in thought. “Which would probably mean that I’d only have to tolerate him in my bed once or twice a year. But then he would probably have lovers.”

It used to be that tricks like these would get Rumpelstiltskin’s older eyes to go dark. Belle had never understood it— never understood why his mood would suddenly get sour at the subject of lovers and bedding and wifely duties that the older maids whispered far too loudly about. But now, sadly, her favorite trick against him seemed used and useless. Pity.

“Aye, plenty. And I’m sure they’d all have better bosoms then your pathetic excuse for breasts.” He pointed down at her bodice but then flicked his finger up at her nose when she followed his gaze down.

She snorted. Very unladylike. “At least I can still see my toes. I don’t have to bend over to see them.”

Belle grabbed at her bodice and yanked. She might not have breasts, but the bodice was still damn uncomfortable. And it never was up high enough for her taste. It seemed like even her pathetic excuses for breasts were always trying to spill out over the top. Rumpel sighed and placed an arm around her shoulders (damn bodice bedamned), and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Belle closed her eyes, enjoying the small comfort.

He always smelled of wood smoke and earth. Not the ridiculous perfume that the boys her age were wearing nowadays. “I’m sorry I teased you about your fiancé,” Rumpelstiltskin said. “And your breasts.” The breast thing, Belle noticed, was a pathetic excuse for an afterthought.

“I’m sorry they call you names.” She watched him blink repeatedly, uncomfortable. She schooched closer to him so that her leg and his leg were flush against each other. An Army of two.

“One day,” he whispered, “One day, I’ll be king. And I’ll rule all of Arcadia. My height or the depth of my voice be damned.” His eyes were far away again, like they always were when he thought of Hubert, his father.

“One day I’ll not have to wear these stupid dresses. I can cut my hair short again and go live in the woods. Or in the sea. Maybe I’ll be a mermaid.”

He laughed— really, laughed. The laugh that embarrassed him so when he was in the company of his peers— a high-pitched guffaw and giggle that reached the ends of Belle’s toes. “I could see the mermaid bit,” he wiggled his feet underneath Belle’s, so that she jumped. “But you were an ugly boy, ma Belle. I like it when your hair is long.”

He pulled at a lock of Belle’s hair and twirled it around his spindly fingers. He looked at her with so much adoration in his eyes that Belle got a strange feeling in her gut. Maybe she would keep her hair long. But not because of Rumpelstiltskin, surely. Heat rose to her cheeks. Belle bit her lip, embarrassed. She had whipped him in battles before, and yet here she was with her bodice falling down and her skirts rolled up to her thighs, and she was blushing.

He was just Rumpelstiltskin.

But, to her horror, he seemed to notice her blush. “Hrm,” He said, dropping his hand with her hair and the arm around her shoulder. “You should get back to the party.”

That hurt. “Why?” This wasn’t like him.

“I’m being selfish,” he said simply. “I have no right to keep the Saffron from the rest of the garden.”

She thought him utterly silly. “Saffron, am I?”

This time Rumpelstiltskin blushed. “Oh, shut it.” And then, he met her eyes and grasped at both of her hands. “You aren’t my little duckling anymore, darling,” he said, and held her hands fast when she tried to pull away. “You’re the centerpiece now, and your father has already promised you. You’re the goddamn Persephone next to the Gorgons.”

That hurt more. “So now I am a price? A bargain for food and armor and men?” She could have nearly slapped him, comparison to the woman raped by Hades aside. And Belle didn’t slap. She punched. She wasn’t that old yet.

Rumpelstiltskin slapped a hand to his forehead, rolling his eyes. “No, tot, that’s not what I said—”

“You are a rich King,” Belle started, without thinking. “So buy me.”

He fell backward out of the fountain. Luckily he didn’t take Belle with him as he fell flat on his back, and hit his head on the stone. He rubbed it. “I’m sorry— what?”

“I said buy me.” Belle said, quiet at first but steadily growing stronger. “Keep me from going to Adam or Eric or whatever bastard my father has decided on.” She leaned over and was practically directly above him, staring down at his very wide eyes and dropped jaw.

“You’re not a bloody jewelry box, poppet—”

Belle brushed her hair from her eyes. “You don’t want me?”

Rumpelstiltskin looked like he was about to die. He pushed himself up to his feet and paced rapidly around, making wild gestures and cursing things that he never said around her, to her chagrin. “Oh bloody king on his chamberpot we are not having this conversation.”

Belle swung a leg over the edge of the fountain, rolled up skirts and all, so when Rumpelstiltskin pivoted back to her again, face flushed and gangly legs wobbling about, he went red in the face and whirled around again. “Goddammit girl pull your skirts down!”

Girl? Belle thought, searching her brain (and completely ignoring him, her lack of proper clothing had never bothered him before, she certainly wasn’t going to start now) for a time that he had ever called her ‘girl’. Poppet, duckling, darling, sweetness, dove, love, beloved, precious, yes to all. But he had never called her girl.

“Rumpel?” He turned like she had summoned him with his shortname. “…have I done something?”

Rumpelstiltskin sighed, though he looked like he had been through the run once or twice. “No, nothing, pet.”

“Apparently not,” Belle said. “You called me girl.”

She said it with a certain amount of distaste on her lips. To everyone else she wasgirl— her father, Nan. Gaston. “It’s nothing, Belle.” He returned to her side— though, not touching her fondly as he always had.

“Then what?”

He looked at her, and he looked like he was nearly ready to crumble. “Stop this,please.”

Like she was commanding him to kill an innocent or tax the poor; something dreadful. Like she was asking him to wear stiff petticoats and tight bodices and prance around all night in shoes that hurt and talk with dozens of people about absolutely nothing. “I will do ask you ask,” she stated quickly. “I will stop, my prince.”

She said it without malice or hate, or his hated Baron. But he looked like she had slapped him.

“Belle, you just know not what you ask.”

She shook her head. “I know exactly what I ask. And why you refuse.” Belle pulled her hands from his, suddenly everything seemed too hot. She whirled to face away from him, completely intent on walking away and wandering the woods for a few hours until the majority of her father’s guests were asleep or drunk out of their minds— too drunk to bother her, anyway.

“You know nothing,” he hissed, and was suddenly behind her again. “You knownothing of the wants I have.”

He held her against his chest, unlike any way that he had ever held her before. She couldn’t pinpoint what exactly was different about it, but suddenly his hands— hands that she had held since she had been four and he had been one-and-ten (tall and gangly, even at that age). She’d known Rumpelstiltskin, their fathers had been old,old friends— Maurice and Hubert and Stefan. But now Rumpel— her Rumpel, was pressed up against her back and she was feeling. Feeling things that maybe sheshouldn’t be feeling. “What of them?” She nearly gasped, genuinely shocked. Stopped herself in time.

When had this happened? What had changed?

“It is forbidden,” he said, and she could never remember his voice being so low— maybe the other princes wouldn’t tease him so much if he talked like this all the time?— “And I want it, oh, I’ve wanted it. And here you taunt me, with your perfect being and your perfect legs. And you know I can’t have you.”

He sounded like he was in so much pain. Belle couldn’t bear it. Not to her Rumpelstiltskin.

She wiggled around in his arms (he let her, using no more force on her then he did when they played). She cupped his face in her hands. “I will never love another as I love my Rumpelstiltskin.” The same one that teased her with frogs in her bed and the size of her breasts and the lovers her husband would undoubtedly take.

He, beautiful, beautiful man, closed his eyes against the touch of her hands and kissed her palm. “Forbidden wants are said to be the most difficult to resist, my little Belle. But you must— you must know, of my wants and my fears, and how, and how,” he stopped, stuttered, kissed the palm of her left hand again, this time lingering longer. “I am not handsome. I am not your prince. I am— I am yet still a boy in many a eye.”

Belle had never noticed how green his eyes were before. But they were darker than she recalled. Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes narrowed. “You are far too precious for the likes of me. You are young and innocent, and I am old. Too old. You deserve someone young and whole.”

Both things were true, she had to admit. He was old, in her eyes. But to his father’s eyes he was still a boy. To the world’s eyes he was just newly a man. And Belle herself was young, a child to the world’s eyes, not just her father’s. And seven years stood between them. What had previously seemed an unfortunate circumstance that they had not been born brother and sister so that they could have spent all the time in the world together— from womb to breast to cradle now seemed like an impossible cruelty.

“Do you have no other objections, other then those you have said to me this night?” Belle asked, mind whirling. “It is not from your distain from me or the fact that you do not want me?”

“Oh seven hells, Belle, no,” he pressed into her pale palm. “I have wanted you far longer than I’ve said.”

Belle hummed. “Our fathers would not keep us from each other. They would rejoice,beloved. You have nothing to fear.”

“But they would, for you have been promised to Eric and I to Anastasia.” He cursed, something that Belle didn’t catch but was certain it was not a word that he usually allowed himself around her.

That was true.

And then, suddenly, an idea. “Nan once said that the pieces of a broken heart are so tiny that they can be passed through an eye of a needle.” She left Rumpelstiltskin’s cheek and slid her hand down to the ribbon at her waist, pulling out a small, shiny clear bottle full of blue liquid that glowed in the evening sunlight. “She said that this would grant you anything your heart wished and take away any pain. She traded a hedgewitch for one of my mother’s rings.”

She held the bottle up to his nose. He took it eagerly.

“With this, we could wed?” Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes shown unusually bright. “We could be together? Always?”

“Always.” Belle echoed. “But we must each drink half. And we must each think of the thing we want most.”

He uncorked the bottle with his thumb. Without even pausing to think, to plan, Rumpelstiltskin lifted the tiny bottle to his lips and gulped once, then pressing his lips together to stop the flow before handing it to Belle. She took it and drained the rest. She thought of happiness. Of the look on her father’s face when she and Rumpelstiltskin informed Maurice and Hubert of the uniting of their two kingdoms. The peace it would bring.

Rumpelstiltskin took her face in his hands and hungrily kissed her lips; unlike she had ever been kissed before— the chaste peck to the forehead or once with Gaston when she had been seven. But really, really kissed, a kiss that ignited flames beneath Belle’s skin and left trails of brimstone along her flesh, stealing the very breath from her lungs. It never ended and it never stopped, both of which Belle was eternally grateful. Belle dragged her teeth across his bottom lip and felt him shiver.

“Oh, ma Belle,” Rumpel groaned, breaking for air. He grinned, as she had only seen him grin when he was planning something particularly wicked. “We are going to be inso much trouble.”


End file.
